


Murder at the Oasis

by BoldAsBrass



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, First Time, Humor, M/M, One Shot, Post-Canon, Sexual Content, Yassen Gregorovich Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:14:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22679284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoldAsBrass/pseuds/BoldAsBrass
Summary: Murder, massage and glowing clear skin.Or: Yassen is on assignment at a day spa when one of the other clients piques his interest.
Relationships: Yassen Gregorovich/Alex Rider
Comments: 23
Kudos: 234





	1. A murder

Yassen Gregorovich is lying flat on his back and listening to whale music. It is not how he usually spends his afternoons but one of the nice things about being an assassin is that no two jobs are the same. The lights are low, the air is full of scented steam, and he is resting on a soft padded bench as a young woman with smooth hands removes a peppermint face mask from his skin with long slow sweeps of two warm wet sponges.

“And how does that feel now?” she asks gently when she is done.

“It’s fine,” Yassen says, although in truth, he is starting to feel a little like a leg of lamb. There has already been a rosemary cleanser and a bay leaf facial spritz. Anoint him with olive oil and he will be ready for the oven.

Still, having smooth glowing skin is not a bad attribute for someone in his line of work: good grooming, neat hair and smart clothes are all as much part of his stock in trade as the knife, the gun and the garrote. Subconsciously, people are wired to trust those who appear to conform to societal norms and be nervous of those who do not. It is an innate and very powerful bias. Humans are a social and cooperative species, at heart. Anyone who doubts that should try cramming a hundred and fifty chimpanzees into a London tube carriage in forty-degree heat and see what they are left with at the end of rush hour.

“That’s good,” the therapist says and steps away to set her bowl and sponges on a side counter. She is wearing a navy-blue tunic with cream trousers, and she has introduced herself as Yvonne. It seems like quite an old name for a young person to Yassen. Still Yvonne has managed to secure a job for herself at one of Surrey’s top day spas more or less straight out of beauty college, so it obviously hasn’t done her any harm.

She returns and begins brushing his hair back from his brow with her fingertips, moving slowly from his widow’s peak and down to his temples. A pleasurable tingle runs up Yassen’s spine. This part he likes. It is not _that_ kind of tingle - he is a professional person, not someone who is inappropriate towards service staff - but having someone play with his hair is undeniably pleasant. Like the cool sweep of scissors up the nape of his neck at the barbers. A moment of secret delight. He is sorry when she stops and begins instead to massage across his shoulders and down his chest.

Her hands travel no lower than his collar bones, where a fluffy white towel lies modestly across Yassen’s torso and is pinned beneath his arms. He prefers not to go topless in situations like these. The scars on his ribs take some explaining and although he can, of course, create some backstory involving a heroic army career and an honourable discharge, it makes him more memorable than is ideal. Men are already in the minority at the Oasis day spa, although a sizeable minority, it’s true. This is Surrey, after all.

“You still have a lot of tension in your shoulders,” she murmurs as she kneads slowly up to his neck. No one at the Oasis speaks in a loud voice. All the lights in the treatment rooms are dim, all the therapists’ shoes are soft-soled and all the music is, apparently, whale music.

“Hmm,” says Yassen noncommittally. Partly it is simply that he carries more muscle than she is used to. Partly it is because he has not come to the spa to relax and that awareness hums beneath his skin like a current.

Her thumbs glide over his shoulders and up the nape of his neck and her fingers move to circle his throat. His hands dart up in response, moving quicker than the eye can follow.

“Not there, please,” he says. “I don’t like my throat being touched.” He repositions her hands onto his shoulders and releases his hold before she can register the steel in his grip.

“Does it make you feel claustrophobic?”

“A little,” Yassen admits. Actually, it makes him feel as though he is being throttled but saying so will likely spoil the carefully created ambience.

“Of course,” she says and resumes working his on shoulders, using her body weight to lean over him and stretch them apart. The smooth glide of her forearms along his trapezius muscles and down his upper arms is truly very pleasant. The music he could live without, but this, this he could take more of.

Another five minutes of gentle pummelling and then she stands, placing two chamomile scented pads over his eyes. “I’ll just pop these on and leave them to work for twenty minutes, and then I’ll be back for the rest of your treatments.”

“That’s fine, thank you,” Yassen says politely from beneath the eye pads. The twenty minutes is not really for his benefit, but to allow the therapists a break between treatments. However, she has been pampering and polishing him for almost two hours now; it would be churlish to complain.

As soon as he hears the door sigh close he sets the towel aside and rises to his bare feet. He is already wearing a pair of cream trousers. It is the work of a moment to take a navy-blue tunic from his bag and pull it on, then slip his feet into a pair of cream, crepe-soled shoes.

The wig he takes more care with. It is shoulder length and honey blond, a few shades warmer than his natural colour but not so dark as to look unnatural against his skin tone. Once it is positioned correctly, he examines himself critically in the long mirror on the back of the door. At a hundred and seventy-five centimetres he is on the tall side for a woman, but not unusually so, and he is slim enough for the tunic to fit snugly across the shoulders and hips. The uniform is anyway styled to be deliberately androgynous, sending out the subtle message that the staff are there to provide personal services but not intimate ones. Once he has added a little pink gloss to his lips and brushed mascara onto his lashes, he makes a passable woman. Even he allows, casting himself a sideways glance in the mirror, an attractive one.

Before he leaves, he picks up a clipboard left lying on the side counter. It contains the details of his treatments and his health questionnaire. All the staff in the spa carry a clipboard as they move between rooms and in addition it will help to shield his hands from scrutiny. Well cared for as they are, they are larger and squarer than most women's hands.

He opens the door a crack, checks the way is clear and then steps out into the corridor, walking carefully, not with an exaggerated sway of the hips: that kind of over-the-top parody is for drag queens and comedy films, but with a conscious effort to move more from the thighs than the knees. Yvonne is standing in the reception, chatting to the women on the front desk. She doesn’t spare him a second glance as he glides silently towards the south wing.

* * *

Room 207 is a double room with a tabletop pebble fountain chuckling away in one corner and a shower cubicle in the other. The lights are dimmed, the air is warm and still and the man lying supine on the treatment couch in the centre of the room is visible only as a dark shape beneath a heavy blanket.  
  
“Mr Forman,” Yassen murmurs as he shuts the door. “How are we feeling today?” He has never been a harshly spoken man and over the sigh of the waves and the trickle of the water his present dulcet tones could easily be mistaken for those of a mellow-voiced woman.  
  
The man on the couch grunts. As Yassen draws closer, details emerge from the dimness and resolve into solid forms. Dozens of small needles protrude from Forman’s face like porcupine quills. They stud his forehead, cluster around his mouth, and bristle from his jawline. It looks nightmarish, like one of Dr Three’s more refined tortures, or a still from a horror movie. In fact, it is facial acupuncture, one of the spa’s signature treatments, and Mr Forman pays five hundred pounds twice a month for the privilege of having ninety-five fine needles inserted into his dermis for an hour at a time.  
  
When people think of criminal networks they tend to think of things like drug smuggling, or people trafficking, or extortion, or maybe even bank robberies. But that is not how money is made these days. Gary Forman is a crime boss of the new era, and his sector is waste. It is a multi-million pound industry and the basic business plan is very simple: you lease some land, you find someone looking to dispose of their waste material for cheap, you dump it onto your leased land and then you disappear. All the money is paid up front, in cash. There is no audit trail and no comeback. Do it often enough and it’s a very lucrative business.  
  
So lucrative indeed that, in combination with a little harassment and intimidation, it has netted Forman a twelve-million-pound mansion in Weybridge, a villa in the south of France, platinum membership of the Oasis day spa and a garage full of sports cars. Yassen had driven past a customised Jaguar F‑Type in the carpark as he had parked up his own anonymous Volkswagen. But, unfortunately for Mr Forman, that kind of conspicuous consumption also tends to attract envy and invite malice . One of his former associates has decided that he has been taking rather too large a slice of the pie. And that is where Yassen Gregorovich comes in. Yassen is not a good person; his moral compass points firmly to himself. But he is freelance now: no longer bound to SCORPIA. He can pick and choose which jobs he takes and it pleases him to take on the interesting assignments, the ones which will challenge him, the ones which require a degree of finesse. And that means people like Forman are very much his stock in trade.  
  
When no further response comes from the recumbent figure, Yassen sets down his clipboard and helps himself to a pair of nitrile gloves from a box on the counter. Then, moving silently as a ghost, he goes to stand at the head of the couch. Forman is breathing deeply, more than half asleep. Even in repose he has a craggy face: prominent cheekbones and a strong jaw with greying hair swept back from his forehead. He must have been a good-looking man in his youth, Yassen reflects, as he takes a small case from his tunic pocket, but hard living and bad temper have etched deep lines into his face, making him appear a decade older than his forty-nine years.  
  
“Just one or two working a little loose here,” he says. “Let me fix that.”  
  
As he speaks, he opens the case. It contains five acupuncture needles, identical to those bristling from Forman’s forehead, save each one has been carefully dipped into botulinum toxin. Working swiftly, Yassen removes five needles from along Forman’s hairline and replaces them with his own. Together they will deliver ten times the lethal dose.  
  
“All done now,” he murmurs and steps away. There are, of course, more straightforward ways to kill someone: a mugging gone wrong; a fall from a height; even a good old-fashioned brick off a motorway bridge. But given the surroundings, it amuses Yassen that the poison should be made of a strain of the same toxin that is used to make Botox. Probably it is not ideal for an assassin to have a sense of humour but in the years following SCORPIA’s demise, Yassen has found that he does.  
  
He drops his gloves into his pocket and the five original needles into a sharps bin on the way out. It is all done in a few seconds. The symptoms will come on in the next eight hours and Gary Forman will be dead in twelve. In fact, he is already dead, he just doesn’t know it. Yassen feels no particular guilt about that. There are worse ways to die than in a dark room listening to whale music. For example, drowning in a vat of pig slurry as one of the Environment Agency officials investigating Forman’s operations had done last year.  
  
It is only when he is leaving the room that he encounters a encounters a slight obstacle. “What do you think you’re doing?” a voice says as he is gently closing the door.  
  
He looks around and finds a small, pugnacious cube of a man is standing behind him wearing an impressive scowl. He is a head shorter than Yassen but bulging with muscle, his biceps straining the arms of his tunic.  
  
“Hello,” Yassen says politely. Big muscles don’t intimidate him. Any man under forty can, with regular access to a weights room, sufficient free time, and judicious use of steroids, bulk himself up like the Hulk. It does not mean they are fit. It does not even mean they are particularly strong. It means they are overcompensating for something.  
  
The Cube doesn’t bother returning the greeting. Instead his eyes scan over Yassen’s face and his scowl grows deeper as though taking his existence as a personal affront. “Who are you?”  
  
“Nina, from the agency.”  
  
“And what are you doing with my client?”  
  
“So sorry,” says Yassen, keeping his eyelashes demurely lowered. Women are socialised to make less direct eye contact than men, particularly when men are annoyed. Besides his eyes are a distinctive shade and he does not want to draw attention to them. “The ladies on Reception sent me here. I thought he was one of mine.”  
  
It is the wrong thing to say. The Cube puffs up into an indignant rectangle and seizes Yassen’s clipboard. “ _That_ quite clearly says Room 103,” he says stabbing a stubby finger towards it. “ _This_ is 207.” Another stab of his finger towards the door, which does indeed have the number 207 stencilled on it in gold paint.  
  
“So it does,” says Yassen giving a fluttery laugh. “I just asked for the gentleman wanting a facial. They must have misunderstood.”  
  
“Mr Forman is _my_ client,” the Cube continues and Yassen realises the reason for his upset. Facial acupuncture is one of the spa’s signature treatments, commanding a hefty premium. The Cube is anxious not to lose one of his best paying customers to a rival therapist. Of course, his concern is a little premature: after tonight, facial acupuncture is likely to be much less in demand. But that is not really Yassen’s concern.  
  
“Of course,” he murmurs apologetically “I realised as soon as I saw the needles that that it couldn’t be right. I wonder, could you tell me where Room 103 is?”  
  
The Cube’s jaw clenches as though he is chewing on an invisible wasp but the request is so mildly voiced, so reasonably phrased, that it is difficult to deny. “Through reception and along the north corridor,” he says with bad grace and shoves the clipboard back into Yassen’s hands.  
  
“Thank you _so_ much,” he says and glides away before anything more can be said.  
  
He is almost at the main doors when another of the therapists walks towards him, chattering merrily to her companion. “And these are our treatment rooms on the left,” she is saying as they pass. “And our thalassotherapy suite is at the far end.”  
  
“Is that the same as a swimming pool?” her companion asks innocently.  
  
Yassen pauses pretending profound interest in his clipboard. It has been almost five years since he had lain bleeding on the floor of Air Force One, but he would recognise that voice, that walk anywhere. What is Alex Rider doing at the Oasis day spa? Yassen had had him marked down as a daredevil, not a hedonist. He turns in time to see them disappearing into one of the treatment rooms. He should be returning to his own room where Yvonne will be expecting to find him lying beneath his chamomile eye pads in approximately fourteen minute’s time. Instead he follows them back up the corridor without hesitation. Logic and cool thinking are no use to him here. Alex Rider is his one exception. To everything. He always has been.


	2. A massage

Yassen intercepts the therapist as she leaves the treatment room. Like Yvonne, she is young, with long red hair and a scatter of freckles across her nose. “I’ll be back in five minutes,” she says as she closes the door.

“Chloe?” he asks. It is not a lucky guess. There is a name badge pinned to her lapel. When she looks around with a wide-eyed smile, he continues, “I’m from the agency. Zoya has car trouble and can’t make it in.”

Zoya does indeed have car troubles. One tyre has been slashed, the spare has perished, and the engine won’t start. It is a very unfortunate state of affairs.

“Oh, no!” Chloe exclaims. “Poor Zoya!”

“I know,” Yassen murmurs. “Alison says I can take over here, if you want to go for your break now.”

Alison is the shift manager. Her name and photograph are prominently displayed on a board in the reception, where clients fill out paperwork and sip tisane as they wait to be collected for their treatments. It had been the work of a moment for Yassen to note down her details. It had taken a few minutes longer to phone around the local agencies and cancel her request for cover, but he had been successful on his third attempt.

“Okay,” says Chloe brightly.

She is not as switched on as Yvonne who would likely have asked why Yassen wasn’t taking over Zoya’s clients in that case. Instead she hands him her clipboard and heads happily towards the break room. The form has been completed in a scrawling confident hand. The young man in room 203 goes by the name of Jake Shepherd and he is here for a sports massage. He is nineteen years old and has an area of scar tissue on his left side from a skateboard accident. Yassen waits outside the closed door, aware of an unusual tension coiling in his stomach. Will Alex be the same, or will he have changed beyond measure? Five years is a long time. A third of a life. It is entirely possible his wild and audacious spirit has matured into something both more prudent and less compelling. When a minute has passed, he knocks and enters.

“Hello,” he says softly. “I’m Nina. Your therapist.”

At first sight he thinks the room is empty, then as his eyes adjust to the lower light levels he sees Alex is standing in the corner, some distance away from the treatment couch. He is fully dressed still, taller than Yassen remembers, broader too. But it is undeniably him. His watchful brown eyes remain unaltered, strangely at odds with his tousled hair and casual T-shirt and jeans.

“Oh, hi,” he says. There is no sign of recognition in his voice. Yassen’s face is in shadow. He will see only the silhouette of a slim, uniformed figure standing in the doorway. “I was just seeing if there was any way of changing the music.”

“I’m afraid it is centrally programmed,” Yassen says. He has already asked. He closes the door and leans against it, taking a deep breath. The air is warm and dry and smells a little of antiseptic cleaning fluid and of clean laundry. The room is set out much as his own had been: the bench in the centre and shelves of clean towels and bottles lining the perimeter. The only obvious difference is that this bench has been set up with a face cradle, so the client can lie on their front without misaligning their neck.

“I thought I was getting Chloe,” Alex says after a moment. He puts his hands in his pockets and ambles across the room with a nonchalance Yassen is not sure that he believes. Did he want Chloe? She is pretty, he supposes, in a well-scrubbed, shiny-haired kind of way. A little vapid for his tastes.

“Chloe is fresh out of training,” he extemporises. “Because of your scar tissue, we thought a more experienced therapist might be better able to assist.”

“Oh,” says Alex. But what can he say to that? It is a very reasonable explanation and the information is right there on his form. “Okay. Well, I’m not changed yet. Could you give me another five minutes?”

Another five minutes to do what? Yassen wonders. It will only take him ten seconds to slip out of his baggy clothes. Now that Alex has moved, he can see there is one further difference between the layout in this studio and his: a door in the far-left hand corner. All at once, Alex’s presence makes sense. Room 207 must have been extended to fit in the shower cubicle and to placate the Cube’s ego. Room 205 no longer exists and Room 203 is now adjacent to 207, or perhaps separated from it by a shared cupboard.

Yassen is not a man prone to self-reproach, he has little time for regret, but even so he experiences a small flash of annoyance. Had he realised the revised lay-out, he could have ensured that he was in Room 203 and saved himself a lot of work. This is the downside of being freelance; there is no one to check the fine details. Of course, it could be a complete coincidence that Alex has turned up in the adjacent room to Gary Forman for a therapeutic back rub. He may no longer be involved with MI6. But Yassen is not a great believer in coincidence, particularly when the Rider family are involved. Which means he is not particularly minded to leave its sole remaining member alone to wreak whatever havoc it is that he has in mind.

“Of course,” he says placing the clipboards on the counter. “But we are running a little late. If you don’t mind, I’ll set up while you get ready.”

Alex hesitates. That was not the answer he expected. He could, of course, insist on his privacy, but that risks attracting more attention than is possibly prudent. “Do I need to take my jeans off too?” he asks at last.

Yassen shrugs. “Whatever makes you feel most comfortable.”

He turns his back ostentatiously and considers the many bottles and jars which line the countertops. He has never given a sports massage before but he does not think it will be particularly difficult. One of the necessary skills for doing his job is an excellent knowledge of anatomy. He tips a centimetre of carrier oil into a plastic cup then runs his finger along the lined ranks of aromatherapy oils. Not sage, he decides. He already smells enough like a _bouquet garni_. Not lavender either, that is a scent for old ladies. Eucalyptus is for the sickroom and patchouli stinks like wet dog. “Do you have a scent you prefer?”

Behind him, the bench creaks. “Not really. Nothing too floral.”

Sandalwood, Yassen decides. That is reassuringly masculine. Neroli, for brightness. Perhaps a scant drop of geranium for depth. They will only need a little. They are not Turkish oil wrestling, after all. He sets the cup on a radiator to warm and carefully washes his hands. When he turns back to the bench Alex is already in position: lying on his stomach, his face resting within the cradle and his arms by his sides. His legs and torso are bare, and a towel is wrapped securely around his hips. The tip of Yassen’s tongue touches his lips and he tastes strawberry lip balm. The baggy clothing has been concealing quite a body. Not bulky, but firm and smoothly muscled with well-defined shoulders and a strong, hard back. He circles the bench slowly. In the subdued lighting, Alex’s back is a pale gold with a scatter of contrasting marks dotted across its surface. Yassen pauses to brush his fingertips over a red crescent on his shoulder.

“It’s a birthmark,” Alex says, his voice muffled by the head cradle.

“Yes,” Yassen murmurs. That is a birthmark. This series of pale teardrops splashed across his shoulder blades, though, they are burns, and this jagged white line on his under arm is a healed knife wound. Alex has had a busy few years. He continues his circuit. When he reaches the far side of the bench he halts. “And this is from the skateboard accident?”

Alex’s shoulders twitch, pulling the skin taut across his vertebrae. “Yep.”

Yassen experiences a large and complicated emotion. This raised pink scar, about the size of his fist, is not from a skateboard accident. Someone has shot Alex Rider. They have pointed a gun at his torso and punched a .22 bullet into his chest and out of his left side. There is a heaviness on his tongue which he recognises distantly as anger. He inhales carefully, exhales carefully and sets it to one side to think about later. “Does it give you any pain?”

“Sometimes,” Alex says reluctantly, as though admitting a weakness.

“Now?”

“No.” Quick and dismissive.

“When the weather changes,” Yassen diagnoses. Scar tissue is inelastic. When the skin tightens in cool weather it tugs on the nerve endings, setting off a low grinding ache. 

A slight pause. “Yeah.”

“I see.” He completes his inspection and moves up to Alex’s head, to where his hair flops across the bench in an untidy halo. “So, you wanted a back rub?”

Alex recollects himself. “Yes, I’ve got a karate tournament next weekend and my shoulders are really tight.”

“Tight upper back.” He places his hands onto Alex’s shoulders, one palm resting over each shoulder blade. He is warm. Alive. Yassen can feel the heat of his blood, the beat of his heart. And yes, an underlying tension running along the resting muscle. “Would you say you have a lot of stress in your life?” he inquires.

A short bark of laughter. “You could say that.”

“Hm.” He leaves his hands where they are for a few seconds longer before stepping away. “Let’s see what we can do.”

The oil has thinned from the heat and pours easily into his cupped hand. Standing at Alex’s head, he uses his palms to stroke firmly upwards from his lower back, along the top of his shoulders and up to his neck, then more gently around and back down to his sacrum. Five slow repetitions, following the lines of his body, mapping out the contours of this new terrain, the slopes, the planes, the swells, the grooves. The oil sinks into Alex’s skin like water into sand and his hands slip easily across its surface. Effleurage, Yvonne had called it. Smooth gliding strokes. Warming up the tissue. Letting the client become accustomed to your touch.

“And how does that feel?” he asks. Yvonne is always asking him how things feel. He assumes it must be part of the training.

“Nice,” Alex says, then clears his throat. “Although I was expecting a sports massage, this feels more like Swedish?”

Yassen steps to one side and transitions into sketching out slow figures of eight before he replies. “More pressure?”

“Maybe a bit.”

He traces the perimeter of one shoulder blade with his thumbs, working in the space between the spine and its medial edge, easing them away from each other. When he has done what he can, he repeats the manoeuvre on the other side, keeping his pressure firm and steady. “Better?”

“Yeah.”

He shifts his grip and employs a little petrissage: squeezing and kneading the trapezius muscles along the top of the shoulders between his forefingers and thumbs before moving along to the deltoids. The muscles here are dense and tightly packed. There is likely an element of truth in the karate story. The best cover stories are often the simplest.

“Your hands are strong,” Alex says after a few minutes.

“Yes.” His hands are strong. A good grip is important in his line of work. Shooting a gun takes effort. So does operating a garotte. He hangs by his fingertips from a door frame for five minutes every morning to maintain his strength. “That is the advantage of an experienced masseur.”

Alex is silent for a few moments longer, then says drowsily, “I thought the female version was masseuse?”

“You’re right,” says Yassen, his hands not pausing. “I’m getting old. These days we mostly say, ‘massage therapist’ instead.”

“You don’t seem that old,” says Alex, gallant if muffled.

Yassen laughs quietly. “How very kind.”

He moves to the top of the bench and begins combing Alex’s hair upwards from his neck to fall about his ears in tousled waves, leaving the nape exposed to his touch. It is not a demanding task. Alex’s hair is freshly washed, slippery smooth, and his fingers have itched to tidy and neaten its unruly tresses since the first time they met. When they are arranged to his satisfaction, he draws his fingers up into the hairline, to where the trapezius muscles attach to the base of the skull. Small movements are needed here, just a circling of the fingertips, unless you are planning to dislocate the neck.

“Exhale,” he instructs. Alex exhales and he feels a slight easing, He slides his hands further upwards to the base of the occipital ridge, cups the skull between his palms and exerts a light upwards pressure, creating some space between the vertabrae. “Again,” he says.

Alex exhales once more and his shoulder blades sink lower on his back. Well, there you are. Perhaps Yassen has been in the wrong job these past twenty years. Careers advice in the Soviet Union had been sadly lacking, not really extending to men becoming therapeutic masseurs.

“How does that feel?” he asks maintaining the pressure.

“S’nice.”

“Yes.” It feels nice to him too. It is not often he touches someone outside of a professional capacity and then such touches are either perfunctionary or form part of a commercial exchange. He smooths over Alex’s shoulders and looks thoughtfully down the groove of his spine. “You know,” he adds, “we can work the upper body, but a lot of tension resides lower down the back.” He leans to place the edge of his hand at the point where towel meets hips. “Here.”

“Oh, really?” Does he imagine the slight hesitation which enters Alex’s voice?

“Yes.” He circles slowly around the bench, fingertips still casually resting on Alex’s back. When he reaches its base, he sees the towel has ridden a little low on his hips, revealing twin dimples at the base of his spine. Yassen considers them for a moment, experiencing a stirring beneath his tunic which is far from androgenous, then turns his attention to the two long ridges of muscle which run along each side of the spine. These are the erector spinae. They suport and stabilise the entire spinal column, from the hips right up to the occipital bone, and when manipulated they can have some very interesting effects.

Moving carefully, he begins working them with his thumbs. Just pressing and circling next to the spinous processes of the vertebrae. Small circular movements, moving upwards one vertebra at a time. There is a sweet spot for this: a pleasurable discomfort. Too gentle and you will achieve nothing, too firm and you will leave bruises. Get the balance right though and-

Alex makes a small noise.

Yassen pauses. “Is it painful?”

“No.” He shifts on the bench and adds through gritted teeth. “Intense.”

“Yes,” says Yassen. “It can be intense.”

The tendons, ligaments, and fascia surrounding the muscles are full of nerve endings. Manipulate them correctly and you can produce a startling array of sensations. Of course, these are not always enjoyable but done correctly they can set off a cascade of nerve impulses to fire in the fingers, the toes and other sensitive parts. Powerful impulses which are not really triggered by any other form of touch. He continues slowly. The best results are achieved from a measured pace. The effects build cumulatively and in any case, anticipation has a potent sensitising effect. When he reaches the midpoint of the back between the shoulder blades, where the skin is drawn tightest, Alex makes another noise, this time deep and guttural.

“Lots of tension there,” Yassen observes, pressing lightly.

“Yeah,” Alex says thickly.

“I thought so,” he murmurs as his thumbs work up to the base of the neck and easily over the shoulders, eliciting a sinuous flex of the spine. Alex’s muscles are warm and pliant now, yielding to his touch. The atmosphere has shifted subtly too, from soothing to something a shade more voluptuous. The air is warm. The lights are dim. The oils are releasing their softer warmer notes. Even the whales seem to have swum away, leaving only the slow push and pull of the waves in their wake. It is an interesting question, Yassen thinks, as his hands slide in smooth criss-cross strokes. Where does the border lie? When does the therapeutic touch become amorous? When does effleurage become a caress?

“How is the pressure now?” he inquires. There’s a long pause. Alex’s ribs slowly rise and fall beneath his hands. Is he asleep, or has he simply slipped into some languorous trance? “Alex?” he prompts.

He knows the moment the question registers when he sees the small hairs rise along Alex’s spine. It is quite an informative sight. He had always assumed that talk of hairs standing up on the back of the neck was simply a figure of speech.

“My name’s Jake,” Alex says. “Jake Shepherd.”  
  
“Oh.” Yassen completes another slow figure of eight. “Is it? I could have sworn it was Alex Rider.”  
  
A further pause. “And who might you be?” Alex asks, deceptively casual.  
  
“Can’t you guess?”  
  
“I’d rather you told me.”  
  
“I’ll give you a clue.”  
  
He draws his finger across Alex’s back. A ‘Y’ on his left flank. A long looping 'G' on his right. And then, for emphasis, a small final punctuation mark, dotted at the base of his spine.


	3. A happy ending

There is a long and weighted pause, then Alex rolls from the bench and sprints for the door. He is fast and limber and oily and if Yassen had attempted to catch hold of him he would undoubtedly have slipped from his grasp like an eel. But Yassen is an old hand at this game and, crucially, his soft-soled shoes provide him an excellent grip. Rather than attempting to halt the headlong flight he pivots and pushes, using Alex’s momentum to drive him towards the door. Alex spins, his bare feet slipping on the smooth tiled floor and then Yassen has him pinned against the door, one hand at his neck.

“Hello, Alex,” he says in his normal voice.

Alex’s hands fly to his throat, trying to prise himself free. “You!” he chokes. “You’re-“ but whatever he is about to say next is interrupted as his loosely anchored towel drops to the floor.

They lock eyes for a moment, then Yassen looks downwards. Beneath the towel, Alex is wearing what would, in normal circumstances, be a perfectly decent pair of boxer shorts. At present however, they are doing little to conceal that over the intervening years he has grown into quite the impressive young man. “Oh, hello,” he says. “Is this for me?”

Alex redoubles his efforts to escape, his feet scrabbling across the floor. “Let go! You tricked me!”

“Tricked you?” Yassen’s eyebrows climb. “I rubbed your back, not your-” Here, he inclines his chin meaningfully downward.

Alex wrestles with the hand at his neck for a moment longer then gives it up as a bad job. For all his slim build, Yassen has muscles like steel cables. “I thought you were a massage therapist called Nina,” he says sinking back against the door. “Not a dead assassin who killed my uncle.”

“I’m not dead,” Yassen points out.

“I’ve gathered,” says Alex in a way which is very reminiscent of John Rider. He turns his head carefully from left to right as far as it will go. “Do you think you could let go of my throat?”

“Does it make you feel claustrophobic?”

“No. It makes me feel like you’re about to crush my trachea.”

“If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.“

“That’s not really helping.”

Yassen considers, then takes a firm hold of Alex’s hair with his left hand and releases his grip with his right. “Happy now?”

“I guess,” says Alex, not sounding particularly grateful.

For a while neither of them speaks as Alex examines his face with suspicious eyes and rubs his neck. Yassen bears the examination with equanimity, his own eyes half-lidded as he returns the scrutiny. It is not so very unusual for him to have someone pinned to a wall, but he does not normally pay so much attention to their mouth while he is doing it.

“Yassen Gregorovich,” Alex says at last. “What brings you back from the dead?”

He shrugs. “I got bored.”

“Bored?”

“There’s only so long you can lie in a hammock, drinking rum from a coconut and watching the dancing girls sway.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Alex says dryly. “I told everyone you were dead. While you were lying in a hammock drinking rum, I was writing reports on your untimely demise.”

“They were very convincing reports,” Yassen acknowledges. He had particularly enjoyed the parts about his chiselled lips and lightning fast reflexes.

Understanding enters Alex’s dark eyes. “I was your stooge. Your puppet. Your get-out-of-SCORPIA-free card.”

“They would have hardly believed I was dead if I’d phoned up to tell them myself.”

Alex laughs quietly, with an edge of bitterness to his voice that Yassen doesn’t remember from their previous encounters. “My God. Is there anyone in this world who isn’t out to use me for their own ends?”

Yassen reflects on the fist-sized scar that lies beneath his own tunic, on the long weeks spent recuperating in a private Swiss clinic. But now is not the time for competitive misery. “Poor Alex,” he murmurs instead.

“Though I don't know why I'm surprised,” Alex continues moodily. “I should know better by now.”

“Life is hard,” Yassen agrees. His eyes leave Alex’s face to travel appreciatively down his torso. “Why don’t I help you feel better?”

“Better?” Alex's eyes flick to his with a wariness which, given the circumstances, Yassen finds rather endearing. “Better how?”

“You have some tension here,” he says and presses his hand to the front of Alex’s boxer shorts. Their contents have subsided over the past few minutes, but he thinks with carefully handling they will revive.

“Oh, no,” says Alex at once. He tries to twist away only to find the hand clasped in his hair has a grip every bit as tight as the one at his throat.

“Let Nina help,” Yassen says and smiles to himself as he feels a tell-tale stirring. The spectrum of human sexuality is broad and he would hardly claim to be an expert in all of it, but two decades of operating on the seamier side of society have taught him that some fantasies are remarkably prevalent. While the media may present young men with an endless procession of the young, the smooth and the nubile to lust after, Alex Rider would be far from the first of his peers to have indulged in private fantasy about an understanding and experienced nurse-figure coaxing him gently towards orgasm. “Don’t worry,” he adds as he slips his hand inside the placket. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“You are insane.” Alex says. “Certifiably nuts.” He is standing very still now and staring over Yassen’s right shoulder, as though the empty treatment room will provide him with an answer to his predicament.

“That’s not a very sensible thing to say to someone who has your balls in their hand,” he says, tightening his grip slightly for emphasis.

“Well, I always did like to live dangerously.”

Yassen gives a faint smile of acknowledgement then leans in closer, so his lips are only a few centimetres from Alex’s ear. In his thick-soled shoes, they are much the same height. ”Fuck my fist,” he breathes.

Alex eyes snap to his in wide-eyed shock. “What?” It is the first time he has heard Yassen swear and the obscenity is all the more shocking for being so softly voiced.

”Fuck my fist,” he repeats and fitting actions to words, closes his fingers and strokes slow and firm up Alex’s length. His hand is warm and already oily and his actions elicit a sharp intake of breath.

“Yes,” he murmurs encouragingly as Alex revives with flattering speed. “That’s good. Pretend I’m your girlfriend.” Another few exploratory caresses then he draws him out into the open to admire his prize. Long, slick and notably thick, with a round smooth head. Really, he has grown up very nicely. “Do you have a girlfriend, Alex?”

“None of your business.”

Yassen tuts and loosens his grip. “Don’t talk to Nina like that,” he chides.

Alex stomach muscles flex involuntarily and his hips jerk, seeking friction. “Not right now,” he manages. “Not really a good time.”

“Oh dear,” sighs Yassen sympathetically, though he is not really surprised. The speed of Alex’s response and the growing slickness coating his fingers do not suggest a young man with a regular sexual outlet. “That must be very frustrating.”

The words cause Alex to exhale sharply through his nose. Yes, it is frustrating. He feels very frustrated. No one understands just how frustrating it is to be a nineteen-year-old who wants to come. And now here is the nurse with a soft sympathetic voice and a warm sympathetic grasp to ease those frustrations away. His hands press and flatten against the door and he pushes himself more firmly into Yassen’s grip. Now he grasped the idea, Yassen keeps his hand still and lets him do the work, rubbing his swollen glans back and forth within his clenched fist.

“Very good,” he murmurs with an encouraging squeeze. “You’re doing very well. Look how big you’re getting.”

Very few people don’t enjoy being praised. Particularly with regards to their own sexual performance. Alex proves no exception. His thrusts grow more urgent, his gaze riveted on Yassen’s hand as though the sight of his swollen cockhead appearing and disappearing, like some obscene magical trick, is the most fascinating sight he has ever seen. Yassen keeps his eyes fixed on Alex’s face, enjoying the sight of his hair flopping across his forehead, the rising flush in his cheeks, his expression of intense concentration. Anyone with an internet connection can see all the erect penises they want. Alex Rider in the throes of passion,is not something he gets to see every day. And not just see; it is a full body experience. He can feel Alex’s skin tensing against his and smell his hot odour of sweat, sandalwood and sex.

“How does that feel?” he murmurs.

It is not really necessary to ask. Alex is panting with exertion, his legs shaking and the tiny slit at the head of his cock is twitching eagerly, signalling the impending explosion. Yassen feels the gathering quiver travel along the length of his shaft and tightens his fingers the split-second before Alex chokes out an expletive and rockets his load all over his stomach and chest. Then, gratifyingly, his knees buckle and he sinks to the floor, his oily back sliding easily down the door. Yassen drops with him and ends up kneeling across Alex’s hips as he milks out the last few drops onto his tight abdominals.

“Good,” he says, “very good.”  
  
His eyes flick from Alex’s face, to his torso then back to his face. Then with an impatient grimace which even his years of training can't prevent, he pushes his trousers to his knees and begins to work himself with hard deliberate strokes, staring at the sweaty body beneath him with hungry eyes. It is tempting to add to Alex’s state of disarray and streak his seed across his chest, add his personal signature. But at the last second good sense prevails, and he unloads instead into the towel which lies crumpled by his knee, coming in a series of hot quivering pulses which send shivers of delight running along his spine and bend him near double with their intensity. He remains crouched for a few moments, one hand braced against the wall, gathering himself, then rises to his feet and begins adjusting his clothing.  
  
Alex slides further down the door, gradually lengthening into a long spineless sprawl. “What now?” he asks from the floor.

“Now?” Yassen straightens his tunic. Is Alex hoping for a second round? Already? If so, he will be disappointed. Yassen may be fit for his age but he is not superhuman.  
  
“Are you going to let me go?”  
  
He considers. In truth, he has not got that far in his thinking. He could try to take Alex with him when he leaves, but it seems unlikely he will come along quietly and the Volkswagen boot is not very big. “Yes,” he decides, stepping over Alex’s recumbent form so he can get to the sink.  
  
Alex props himself up on his elbows, his expression shifting through a gamut of emotions. Surprise, relief then unease. “You can’t tell anyone about this.”  
  
“Who would I tell?” Yassen asks, as he washes his hands free of oil and other gummy residues. “SCORPIA have disbanded and I’m not on speaking terms with your people.”  
  
“That’s because they think you’re dead.”  
  
“Then it would be better if they kept on thinking that,” Yassen advises, adjusting his wig in the above-sink mirror. “Save yourself the paperwork.”  
  
Alex considers then nods reluctantly. This is a situation where a prudent silence works to both their benefits. He levers himself up to sitting and watches as Yassen smooths the hair around his face into honey-blond waves. “You’re actually quite a hot woman,” he says at last.  
  
Yassen gives him a heavy-lidded glance over one shoulder. “Thank you.”  
  
Too late Alex realises what he’s said. “If I was into older women,” he adds clambering to his feet. “Which I’m not.”  
  
Yassen holds his peace. After today’s performance, he is not sure Alex is into women at all, but if he’s right then it is a piece of self-knowledge which Alex will have to arrive at by himself. At nineteen, Yassen had also been in the dark about why all his most turbulent feelings were only stirred by men. “What do MI6 want with Gary Forman?” he asks instead.  
  
“Who’s Gary Forman?” Alex asks as he passes behind him.  
  
He smiles faintly at his reflection. “By all accounts, not a very popular man.”  
  
“Then maybe he shouldn’t kill people for a living,” Alex mutters. He retrieves a hand towel from a pile on a shelf and wipes himself down with a grimace, then goes to retrieve his clothes from where they lie in an untidy heap on a chair. “It’s hard to warm up to someone like that.”  
  
He really is fundamentally unaltered, Yassen muses as he reapplies his lip gloss. Smart mouth and all. He had been about to suggest that perhaps it would not be necessary for Alex to spend too long exerting himself over Gary Forman. But probably it will be better for him to find that out for himself. He blots his mouth, then collects up his clipboard and the discarded towel from where it lies in a heap by the door. He and Alex may have reached an understanding, but he is not inclined to leave a full DNA profile behind him to test that resolve. “I will leave you to get on with your day,” he murmurs.  
  
Alex pauses, jeans in one hand, T-shirt in the other. “You’re going?”  
  
“Yes.” Time is ticking on and Yvonne will be wondering where he’s got to.  
  
“Right,” says Alex and begins pulling on his jeans.  
  
Yassen looks at him curiously. “Did you want a kiss and a cuddle?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Well then, until next time,” he says and slips out of the door before Alex can think up a scathing retort.  
  
The hushed corridors are almost empty and he moves along them with a speed which belies his tranquil expression. When he reaches Room 103 he pauses to collect his thoughts, then knocks on the door. If Yvonne is inside, he will tell her that her client has been taken ill and has asked Nina to collect his things. With luck, she will not look too closely at his face. When there is no response, he knocks a second time with more force, then opens the door to find the room is unoccupied. He undresses swiftly, discarding the wig and stowing away the towel and tunic, before wiping his face clean of makeup. He has barely settled on the bench and replaced the chamomile eye pads before he hears the door open.  
  
“There you are!” Yvonne says. “I was wondering where on earth you’d gone.”  
  
“So sorry,” he says apologetically. “I had to step out to use the facilities. I think it was all the tisane.”  
  
She closes the door with a slight embarrassed laugh. “No problem at all.” Paper rustles as she checks the clipboard. “So, we’re finishing up with an Indian head massage?”  
  
“That’s right.”  
  
He hears soft footfalls as she moves across the room to take up position at the top of the bench. “You’re much less tense now,” she says after a few minutes working his trapezius muscles. “I can really feel the difference in your shoulders.”  
  
Yassen stretches luxuriously, one leg and then the other, feeling his muscles stretch and a sense of burgeoning well-being. “Oh, yes,” he murmurs. “Yes, it’s true. I do feel much more relaxed.”


End file.
